Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from...

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This Week’s Recap of Corporate Media Bullcrap*

By Lij Teodrose Fikremariam on November 27, 2017

Excuse the slight delay in publishing “This Week’s Recap of Corporate Media Bullcrap”. Usually, this segment is made available every Friday as a way to recap the week’s pile of crap that is peddled by corporate media. But since Friday was a “holiday” invented out of thin cloth by Wall Street to encourage yet more materialism, I decided to dedicate that day to write about the importance of giving your presence as a present. So I guess today is more like a pre-cap of the never ending shenanigans of the bought and sold “fourth estate” and the corporate hacks who present themselves as journalists.

I usually award the “Hackery Honors” at the conclusion of Corporate Media Bullcrap articles, but in light of the astounding level of journalistic malpractice committed last week on the issue of Syria, let me announce the awardee from the outset. Judy Woodruff, come on down! You are this week’s winner of “Hackery Honors”. You should be proud; to be at the top of the class in the league of duplicitous reporters and insidiously deceptive mainstream journalists is no small feat. Yet, the way you presented the ongoing crimes against humanity that is taking place in Syria in the most one sided way I’ve witnessed in a long time earns you distinction of being featured this week—you truly are the Baghdad Bob of PBS.

I can’t believe I actually used to look up to Woodruff as a truth teller and an honorable journalist. Live long enough and all famous heroes are eventually exposed as miscreants. Judith is to truth teller as Sarah Palin is to Einstein. I want to be shocked that our supposed “free press” is populated by a society of propagandists and ideological cheerleaders, but I know better than to be surprised. America’s press corps have been mouth pieces of corporatism and our malignant federal government for decades if not centuries. They do this out of malice and greed; there is nothing that sells more papers, captures eyeballs and enhances clicks than buildings that go boom in the night as death is broadcast from a distance and patriotism sold by charlatans.

It was yellow press journalists who rushed us into World War I as they pushed a made up story about the sinking of the Lusitania in order to sell papers and act as disinformation ministers for the War Department. The same paradigm has been evident in every war that Americans have been conditioned to accept; corporate journalists are the drum majors who march the public into bloodshed. We don’t have to look back in the history books to realize just how yellow corporate journalists are; the New York Times and the Washington Post were the main war mongers who were leading the charge to invade Iraq only to feign outrage after the lies that marched us into an illegal war were manifested. Money in, money out! This is a running theme for capital larcenists and their puppets.

Even though I know just how depraved corporate journalists are, what Judy Woodruff did last week when interviewing Vali Nasr takes the cake. Nasr, who is an Iranian-American academic and a scholar, was presented as a Middle East specialist by Woodruff on last week’s PBS News Hour. I want to be a bit more lenient on Nasr given that he is the Dean of my alma mater’s Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, but I know when corporate media anchors present “a specialist”, what they are really putting forth is a shill of the status quo. Truth tellers are never given a platform or accorded status by mainstream media; all we ever see get paraded on Fox News, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, PBS and beyond are a coterie of partisan toadies and one sided mouthpieces.

To no surprise, what viewers of PBS News Hour were treated to last week was a one sided analysis of the developments going on in Syria. I could barely contain my laughter; these two jokers were able to convey the most outrageous assessment of Syria that would make Tokyo Rose LOL in disbelief! They laid most of the blame of what is going on in Syria at the feet of Putin and advocated a more assertive approach by the United States to confront Russia. This is a war drum these chiselers are beating; a war that could end humanity if a simmering boil between two Cold War foes turns into a flash point. But who has time for nuance and sanity when wars sell ad spaces and raise revenue for corporate media in search of the next marginal dollar—damn the torpedoes and tridents!

I’m going to let Woodruff and Nasr’s words serve as an example of the sad state of affairs at corporate media and why it is imperative that we as readers and viewers have to muster the will to disconnect from the garbage mainstream media is peddling. This is a bit of the excerpt from last week’s interview:

Woodruff: And what’s the significance—Vali, you have— Nasr— you have referenced this a couple of times. The U.S. doesn’t have a significant voice at this point in what’s going on. How did we get to this place?

Nasr: Well, I think it started under the Obama administration, where the administration policy was that Syria is not really worth an American effort. And also I think the Obama administration underestimated Putin’s tenacity and willingness to shape this war, and sort of thought that this is a fool’s errand and Putin is going to crash and burn. This is just a reflection that we don’t have any of that. Now, we played the diplomacy game for a few years in the conflict, even though our commitment to shaping it militarily was much weaker than everybody else’s. Now what we’re seeing, after five , six years, that’s run out. Now the diplomatic situation reflects who has got skin in the game. The United States doesn’t have it, and the others do.

This is a prime example of leading questions and breathtaking chicanery. Woodruff, the supposed unbiased anchor, asks the guest telegraphed inquiries—both sides are just engaging in a kabuki dance. These two are making it seem as though Russia started the war and that the United States has been watching from the sidelines. Obama dropped over 20,000 bombs on Syria since the war started; a war that was initiated in contravention of the Geneva Conventions since a vast majority of the war dead are civilians. Of course, our two timing corporate media never discuss these stubborn facts; they go along with Pentagon war planners by calling dead men, women and children collateral damage and by extension hiding the horrific war that is being declared by our government in the name of capital theft.

This same war is being continued by the corporate rent-boy Trump but the “fourth estate” would rather focus on Donny boy’s mangled tweets than the mangled bodies pilling up in Syria at the behest of the military-financial complex. Donald Trump is thus the perfect foil; all the ills of the world are affixed to the first orange president as if we were living in nirvana before January 20th, 2017. It was the same corporate media that gave birth to a WWE carnival barker winning the presidency, they gave him over $200,000,000 in earned media only to turn around and make money by using his infantile antics as red meat to sell papers. Money in, money out! All the while, corporate vultures keep maiming lives globally with a supposed free press running interference for them. Read “the Face of War” article to see just how in bed corporate journalists are with the authorities they are supposed to be checking [read the Face of War].Whether or not a media entity is getting their funding from government or corporations is a distinction without a difference. “Journalists” who are getting paid by power will not speak truth to power—a free press has been turned into a fee press by plutocrats. The latest Ghion Cast below discusses this very issue. A free press is one that is free from the bribes of corporations and the influence of government funding. Woodruff is a prime example of what happens when power is giving checks to journalists. Tune back on Friday for the next installment of “This Week’s Recap of Corporate Media Bullcrap” and send us your nominees for the next “Hackery Honors” to info@ghionjournal.com and which corporate journalist you think deserves to be highlighted for their fraudulence. #CorporateMediaBullcrap

When you make label or ideology your primary objective, you turn justice into a secondary ambition::

Lij Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and former editor of the Ghion Journal. He is currently the chair of Ethiopians for Constitutional Monarchy. A published author and prolific writer, a once defense consultant was profoundly changed by a two year journey of hardship and struggle. Going from a life of upper-middle class privilege to a time spent with the huddled masses taught Teodrose a valuable lesson in the essence of togetherness and the need to speak against injustice.

Originally from Ethiopia with roots to Atse Tewodros II, Lij Teodrose is a former community organizer whose writing was incorporated into Barack Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech in 2008. He pivoted away from politics and decided to stand for collective justice after experiencing the reality of the forgotten masses. His writing defies conventional wisdom and challenges readers to look outside the constraints of labels and ideologies that serve to splinter the people. Lij Teodrose uses his pen to give a voice to the voiceless and to speak truth to power.